The Resistance Lives!
Happy New Year!
Exclusive Sinfest strips over at the Dark Horse Facebook page. All week.
The first one's here.
A little essay I wrote.
New Book:
And coming soon: An interview!
It's a Sinfestravaganza!

February 23, 2009

All we hear is radio ga ga, radio goo goo

Posted by Tatsuya Ishida

My first summer job ever was working the concession stand at Universal Studios. I worked at the tram rest stop, where all the folks on the tour would take a break and eat sandwiches and frozen yogurt. And let me tell you, I hated those yogurt dispensing machines. For the life of me I could never get it to swirl right. I'd end up making a huge mess every time. Whenever a customer would order the frozen yogurt, I'd have to ask someone else to make it. It was pathetic. One time it was real busy, a mass of hungry patrons lining up for treats. When I got an order for frozen yogurt, I looked around but no one was available to pinch hit for me. Crestfallen, I trudged over to the yogurt machine, took a deep breath, and told myself that this was it. I must face my fears. I will master this yogurt contraption if it kills me. Yes. To the death! Thusly armed with a new sense of mission, I commenced with the swirlage. It just slopped all over the place. I grabbed another cup and tried again. Fail. I just made ugly piles of sludge. After three aborted attempts, a fellow employee finally intervened and produced a competent looking yogurt for me. God, what a humiliating ordeal. Not even capable of serving fast food. To add insult to injury, I would later get exiled to the churro cart. I can hear middle management's rationale for this: "The rookie is ill equipped to handle the high pressure situation of the yogurt machine. Relocate him to the churro stand. If the idiot can't manage the task of sprinkling cinnamon on donuts, send him into webcomics."

June 23, 2008

It's okay, it's okay, you don't have to run and hide away

Posted by Tatsuya Ishida

Whenever I peel an orange, I save the stem end for last. There's something about pulling out the spine that is very satisfying. Texture-wise, visually, the little plucky squirty sensation, it's a fun little operation to cap the peeling process. That's sorta my modus operandi when it comes to food. I leave the best for last. When I have a chicken pot pie, for example, I eat all the carrots and peas first, and leave a stash of chicken for the big finish. When I have a sandwich I work my way around the crust to the middle. I have this shit down to a science. Sometimes, though, it's not so smooth. Things can get complicated. Like, when I'm eating a pancake breakfast with hash browns, bacon, and eggs, I can't decide what my favorite thing is. I panic a little in my heart because I don't know how it's gonna end. But that's what life is all about. Thrills, man. Thrills. I start out all confident that I'll end with a bite of bacon but then, the sweet syrupy pancakes start to win me over. Then the hash browns, that unassuming dark horse, makes a comeback. And then the eggs are like, "Hey, we're the pure unblemished souls of chicken! Recognize!" At that point, all bets are off. It's anybody's game. I might go with bacon. I might not. Nothing's set in stone. Anything can happen. I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Tat, You crazy fool! You HAVE to have the last bite planned out AT ALL TIMES!" But I like to live on the edge, Jack. I take chances. I flirt with danger. That's how I roll.

May 12, 2008

They say the neon lights are bright on Broadway

Posted by Tatsuya Ishida

Resistance back on the air!
It's been almost a year since my last entry and many in the movement have expressed concern over the state of things. Is the Resistance done for? Has Tatsuya fled to another country with no extradition laws? And what's up with those Scientology ads on the main page? Has Xenu the Wicked Overlord of the Galactic Confederacy finally captured your dear leader? Calm your fretting, my friends. The Revolution is alive and well. This past year of radio silence was a necessary strategic maneuver to lull the enemy into a false sense of security. It was all planned out. I've got them exactly where I want them. They may think I'm a lazy slacker/loser/buttclown with negligent updating habits and no social skills whatsoever, but OH NO! I've been lying in wait for many a moon, plotting my glorious return. I leap into action now and catch them completely unawares! And I unveil the new Project Wonderful ad auction banner thing, which they may interpret as a desperate attempt to finance my five bags a day Skittles addiction, but OH NO! It's a bold and daring foray into experimental online business models. I've got it all planned out. Woop, the red phone is ringing. Probably Hillary again. Gotta go.
Viva la Resistance!

September 7, 2007

I'm so hot for you and you're so cold

Posted by Tatsuya Ishida

Like most pampered primadonnas I was shocked to learn that not everyone in the world was there for my benefit and edification. Apparently, vast segments of the human population, possibly even a majority, don't give a flying bugfuck what I do or what happens to me. Highly alarming revelation, this, as I've always assumed I occupied the very center of the cosmos, and the very structure and integrity of the space-time continuum hinged on my well-being. Should anything untoward befall me, I was sure the universe would collapse and all God's Creation would cease to be. But as I grow older and less full of myself, I'm finding what an inconsequential gnatfart I am in the Great Scheme of Things. I could die tomorrow and humanity will go chugging along its merry way. It'll continue junking up the earth, attempt a wild and crazy escape to Mars or something, die out by its own poisonous effluvium or blow itself up, thus ending the Rule of Mammals and ushering in The Age of Insects, who will use all our plastic and styrofoam and non-biodegradable radioactive waste as fuel for their little bug cars and build fantastic little bug cities and little bug kids will read about the giant prehistoric humans with awe and delight. Secular Ants will dig up our bones, Fundamentalist Bees will deny we ever existed, and Dragonflies will just chill cuz they're cool like that. Maybe they'll enshrine my memory and make me an honorary insect. Tatsuya Ishida, the Inconsenquential GnatFart, He Who Predicted The Next Phase of Earth Evolution.

July 16, 2007

I've been downhearted baby, ever since the day we met

Posted by Tatsuya Ishida

I have discovered a way to live life in a state of perpetual orgasmic ecstasy, unbothered by the cruel vagaries of life. It's perfectly legal, no drugs involved, no crazy meditation regimen, no change in diet or beliefs or lifestyle. It's healthy, no side effects, no hangover, just pure bliss round the clock, 24/7. Problem is, I can't articulate the secret method in words. There's no verbal way to demonstrate how I've achieved this state. As much as I'd like to disclose the mystery to you all it resists all known forms of communication. Except one. The comic strip. I can transmit my esoteric knowledge through my comic strip and through my comic strip alone. There's no other way. So you must keep reading, every day, all the time, forever. Buy all the books at least four times. Reminisce on particular strips in your free time, learn punchlines by heart, impress your friends with your knowledge of Sinfest. Whatever you do, you must keep reading. But now for a limited time eligible women can receive my wisdom through special tantric exercises with me as their personal guru. After only ten, twenty sessions of intense hands-on nude full-contact sensual massage therapy you too can experience The Super Duper Tatsuya Joy. Act now! Operators are standing by.

June 6, 2007

If only I could make a deal with God and I'd get him to swap our places

Posted by Tatsuya Ishida

So I'm cruising in my '91 Daihatsu blasting Vanessa Carlton's rockin' smash hit "A Thousand Miles," when it suddenly occurs to me: "Am I too gangsta? Am I too hardcore and menacing for this world?" I just might be. So I decide to tone it down a bit. I bust out the Lionel Ritchie, mellow out the vibe and siesta, fiesta, foreva, togetha, all night long. So anyway, I'm driving along, right, and I approach this tunnel and whenever I drive under tunnels I pretend it's a gigantic vagina and all the cars are little sperm cells swimming into it. Millions and millions of little sperm cars desperately searching for the mother ship. The S.S. Ovary. One day I'm gonna buy me one of them monster semi trucks with a huge state of the art, futuristic trailer with lights on it, and I'll rendezvous with it on the highway, see, and its back doors will fly open and lower a ramp for me to climb into. I'll be like Knight Rider, man. Imagine the envy of the other motorists as I ride off, safely docked inside my own personal headquarters on wheels, my mobile mechanical womb, spiriting me away deep into the night to some secret sanctuary far away from civilization--a thousand miles away, you might say...

May 28, 2007

They paved paradise and put up a parking lot

Posted by Tatsuya Ishida

On knowledge. When I was a kid I wanted to know everything. My reasoning was, if I knew everything, then I could make bets with other kids that I knew everything, and when they'd throw a curveball at me like What's their mom's maiden name or some bullshit like that, I'd know it and I'd take their money. Even at a young age it was clear I was no good, what with my fondness for gambling, forbidden knowledge, and hucksterism. Knowledge for me, apparently, was a useful way to cheat others of their money. As a youth I would also spend hours pondering how I would bargain with a genie if he were to grant me one wish. The wish for a thousand more wishes, a popular idea circulating among my grade school colleagues at the time, would, in my thinking, violate some pre-established genie wish ordinance. I mean, genies aren't idiots. They know they're dealing with a bunch of avaricious, devious little fuckers. And anything we can come up with, they surely can too. There must be all sorts of limitations and stipulations and contingencies you have to keep in mind when finalizing your official wish. They probably give you a whole booklet on it and it must take several meetings of long negotiations between your attorney and the genie's attorney to iron out the details. I suspect this is why it doesn't seem to happen so much these days. Most people get sick of the paperwork and bureaucratic legalese and they give up. Not me, Jack. I'll be in there with a fine-tooth comb picking over the most obscure statutes to find some loophole, some precedent, to make the Faustian deal of a lifetime: To know everything. Cuz you see, if I knew everything, I could make bets with...

March 12, 2007

She moves in mysterious ways

Posted by Tatsuya Ishida

So I've decided to become sexy. I've deprived the world for far too long of my erotic energy and it's time to let my mad sexiness shine on through. It'll be like Picasso's "blue" period, only instead of painting it's my life and instead of "blue" it's "sexy." I've been practicing my come hither look and my pimp strut, I've sat through several viewings of Zoolander, honing my moves, perfecting my craft of sexy. I've even taken courses on dirty dancing, which many of you know, was my first true love before I got caught up in all this cartooning stuff. Also, I've grown my hair out, because you need long locks if you're serious about bringing sexy back--or, in my case, bringing sexy anywhere for the first time ever. Problem is, I don't have silky smooth wavy hair like Fabio. I've got more of a coarse, wiry Yoko Ono thing going on that looks like a kabuki doll that got electrocuted. In dim light I look like that spooky kid from The Grudge on a really bad day. So perhaps sexy is not my thing. Maybe I'm bringing silly back. It ain't exactly Futuresex we're dealing with here. More like Retrosad. But whatever it is I'm sure as shit bringing it, so watch out, ladies!

February 21, 2007

There's definitely no logic to human behavior

Posted by Tatsuya Ishida

I don't know if this is a universal thing or not, but when you eat a Cool Ranch Dorito chip, do you sometimes lick the flavoring off of them before you bite into it? I do that. I don't know why. It's just this compulsion to suck the zesty spicy stuff off the chip, then bite into wet flavorless tortilla strip. It's like a shot of flavor, followed by a bland but crunchy chaser. And the relative bulk and heft of a Dorito allows for this process of moisturization. You couldn't do this with, say, a Ruffles potato chip. The thing would disentegrate in your mouth. Plus, I get a perverse joy out of sucking the thing dry, like a vampire draining its lifeblood, then devouring the emaciated treat, once taut and proud with flavor. Same with nachos. Don't you kinda like the ones that are sorta squishy and softened by the cheese, but still a little bit crunchy? It's like a transitional state between the hard tortilla chip and the soft tortilla wrap. I suspect they did a focus group study on this and that's how Taco Bell came up with that gordita thing, with the hard and soft taco shell in one package. Those marketing guys do their homework. These, my friends, are the sort of things I'm thinking when I got that deep, philosophical look on my face.

December 31, 2006

I'll love with you all the madness in my soul

Posted by Tatsuya Ishida

So I go to Little Tokyo in downtown and get me a $12 bag of green tea. First time ever I got the premium stash. The thing looks like a brick of weed and the cashier lady gave me this look like, "Ho HO, big spender! Woo woo." When I got home to try it out, I realized I had no strainer. I'd been slumming on Lipton style tea for so long I was ill equipped for the authentic shit. Green tea, as you all know, is hardcore ceremonial zen stuff for us Orientals. There's a whole ritual to it, gotta have the right mindset, the right posture, sound a gong, chant, shave your head, show humility and respect for the sacred herbal tea. So what do I do? I grab me one of them little plastic salsa containers from El Pollo Loco, punch some holes in it with a needle, and stick a fork through the side as a handle. I felt like MacGuyver. Surviving on my wits alone. But the holes were too small and too few so that when I poured the hot water it overflowed on me, spilling precious tea leaves into the cup. I was all, "Fuck! Shit! Goddamn holes!" So I go back to punching more holes, thinking, What the fuck am I doing? Why don't I just go buy a strainer? I just spent twelve damn dollars on tea, how expensive can a strainer be? But once I set my mind on something I just won't let go, so after several false starts, I perfect my makeshift homemade ghetto strainer, and have myself some piping hot gourmet ocha in what turned out to be an expletive-filled, profane, not at all sacred tea ceremony.

October 18, 2006

I can't really explain it, I'm so into it

Posted by Tatsuya Ishida

Back when I was a kid I could never figure out why my stomach hurt, not realizing that it was the jalapeno cheese nachos I had the day before. My attention span just wasn't developed enough to put those two things together. The peppers didn't even figure into my thinking--I mean, geez, it was yesterday, that's like forever ago, and as far as I knew the stomach ache was a brand new, completely separate development, a mysterious phenomenon that sprang spontaneously into being. It had the character of divine intervention, the pain taking on epic proportions, without beginning or end, and accordingly I'd get all moral about it. I thought I was being punished by some higher power for being bad. I'd be on the toilet doubled over in agony, apologizing to God for some unidentified transgression. I'd be there blubbering to myself, "Sorry, I won't do it again. Whatever it was I'm so sorry..." Now, decades later, having blossomed into a mature and magnificent powerhouse of rationality, when I get stomach aches, I'm like Sherlock Holmes, man. I break the shit down. What did I eat? Was it those falafels? Was the meat bad? Am I allergic to meat? Did the waiter spit in my food? Was he a terrorist unleashing a biological attack on my person? I'm like those forensic fuckers on CSI. Very methodical. Very analytical. Shit, now when I have religious experiences I immediately retrace my steps, try to track down what series of events led me to this euphoric spiritual illumination. I investigate, gather information, and hypothesize, in a cool and detached manner. It was probably those blueberry waffles. They were heavenly.

August 28, 2006

The teacher knew I had the funk

Posted by Tatsuya Ishida

As many of you have already guessed, I was away on my annual trip to Bohemian Grove, where the rich and powerful gather to plan the next course in world domination. I smoked a bowl with Bono and Arnie before the Cremation of Care, the ritual sacrifice to the Dark Lord Molech. Good times. Sinfest, of course, is a major player in the New World Order, disseminating encrypted messages, via webcomic, to the Secret Order of the Brotherhood of The Clandestine Society of The Black Skull of Illuminated Knowledge of Darkness. The layperson only gets the surface jokes, but there's a complex Da Vinci Code type thing going on, buried in the panels, embedded in the pixels, accessible only to initiates. If the punchlines in Sinfest are sometimes lame, that's only because you don't know the code. I assure you it's hilarious. It's so funny you don't even know. Sometimes the "cover" punchlines are deliberately lame to camouflage the fabulous inside jokes. It's all very technical. Alas, I've said too much already. Oh, and here's a coded message for all my fellow pledges of the Dark Brotherhood: The Ancient Astronaut has landed. Operation Snoopy Tits is a GO! Those in the know know what I'm talking about. Shouts to all my oppressor buddies. Go, World Domination!